Massacre at Columbine High
by Darth Kieduss the Wise
Summary: Bullied for far too long, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold get their revenge. Dedicated to the victims of the Columbine High School massacre and to point out the suffering Eric and Dylan went through.
1. Calm Before the Storm

**Dedicated to the heroes and victims of the Columbine High School massacre and the suffering Eric and Dylan went through for four years, tormented by the jocks and popular kids. I write this because I know what it's like to walk through school and be spat on. Told I was nothing but a freak, that I was no good. For 7 years, people treated me like shit and no one else cared. Stop bullying to prevent kids from committing suicide, or killing others.**

ERIC HARRIS' HOUSE  
APRIL 28, 1998  
LITTLETON, COLORADO

In the middle class of the urban town of Littleton, near Denver, Colorado, a seventeen year old murderer's fantasy was beginning to take shape.

He and a friend, known as VoDKa, or V, intend to commit an act so violent, that it will secure their place in history.

Typed up rant by Eric Harris:

"_Sometime in April, me and V will get revenge and will kick Natural Selection up a few notches...If we have figured out the art of time bombs before hand, we will set hundreds of them around houses, roads, bridges, buildings and gas stations, anything that will cause damage and chaos...It'll be like LA riots, the Oklahoma bombing, WWII, Vietnam, Duke and Doom all mixed together."_

_"I want to leave a lasting impression on the world_."

One year later, on April 20th, 1999, Eric David Harris, and another Columbine student, Dylan Bennet Klebold, committed the worst high school massacre in American history.

They killed twelve students and one teacher. Injured twenty-three others and then turned the guns on themselves.

This story records events as they unfolded on that Tuesday morning, during the critical hour of 11:08 AM to 12:08 PM. For years, the horror of the massacre has defied explanation. But recently, new information has been released about the attack and the events leading up to it. From these terrible details, it's possible to reconstruct a fuller picture of Columbine, and the freakish whirlwind of circumstances that ended with a teenager and an adult committing mass murder.

This is the story of the Massacre at Columbine High.

APRIL 20, 1999  
11:08:15 AM  
EN ROUTE TO COLUMBINE HIGH SCHOOL

At 11:08 in the morning, Eric Harris was three minutes away from Columbine High School.

Of the one last entries in Eric Harris' journal:

"_NBK came quick. Everything I see and hear, I relate to NBK somehow. It feels like a *** damn movie sometimes_."

NBK was Eric and Dylan's codename for the coming massacre. It stood for Natural Born Killers, a 1994 movie they both admired.

The film tells the story of Mickey and Mallory, a mass murderer couple with traumatized childhoods, who become media celebrities. The characters were based on spree killer couple Charles Starkweather and his underage girlfriend Caril Ann Fugate.

For Eric and Dylan, the movie seemed to represent a kind of redemption, that they, like the fictional characters, were ultimately superior.

Dylan Klebold, words from home video:

"_I know we're gonna have followers. Because we're so fucking God-like. I mean, we're not exactly human. We have human bodies, but we've evolved one step above you fucking human shit. I mean, we actually have fucking self awareness_."

A key element in Eric and Dylan's sense of alienation came from their school.

Another last entry in Eric Harris' journal:

"_Everybody makes fun of me cause of I how I look, how fucking weak I am and shit...Whatever I do people make fun of me, and sometimes directly to my face...I__ hate you people for leaving me out of so many fun things. And no, don't fucking say, 'well that's your fault' because it isn't, you people had my phone # and I asked and all, but no. no no no don't let the weird looking Eric KID come along, ohh fucking nooo_."

At Columbine High School's unspoken hierarchy, Eric and Dylan saw themselves at the bottom of the pile. The weird kids who hung out with the other outcasts. At the very top were the jocks, a group with their own rules of conduct and their own dress code, which included white baseball caps. From a certain point of view, jocks are not necessarily only school athletes. A jock is anyone who believes that they, because they wear nice clothes, because they screwed the best looking girl, because the teachers treated them different, deserve and are better than everyone else. It's bullshit, though.

While Eric and Dylan were targeting some of the jocks during their shooting rampage, witnesses would later report that they both also seemed hell bent on revenge against the school itself.

They went to Columbine High School to kill people. They didn't go shoot up the police station. They didn't go to the public library. That's because they hated the school. They hated the injustice of this school. They hated the environment.

(A/N: I am not condoning in any way what they did. I'm just trying to find and explain the answers.)

Words from one of Dylan's home videos:

"_You've been given us shit for years. You're fucking gonna to pay for all the shit. We don't give a shit…cause we're gonna to _die _doing it_."

THREE MILES TO THE SOUTH

Eric and Dylan had planted a decoy bomb three miles to the south before heading to their school. The timer was set for 11:14 a.m. as a diversion for authorities. A surveyor working in the area noticed it.

"What the hell is this?" he asked himself. It was a barbecue design: standard propane tank, the fat, round white ones, eighteen inches tall, a foot in diameter, packing some twenty pounds of highly explosive gas. This one employed aerosol cans for detonators, each wired up to an old-fashioned alarm clock with round metal bells on top.

When the surveyor moved for a closer look, he realized it was a bomb.

"Oh, crap."

He decided to move it out of the area to protect other civilians. As he made to alert the authorities, the bomb detonated, but it fizzled. The pipe bombs and one of the spray cans detonated, producing a loud bang and a grass fire. But the propane tank laid undisturbed in the burning field.

"Holy shit!" the surveyor yelled as he hit the deck. "What the hell is happening!"

Eric may have had another reason for the decoy bomb. He was uncannily perceptive about people, and Dylan had been wavering. If Dylan was reticent, the decoy bomb would help ease him in. It was a harmless explosive, no one would be hurt by it, but once they drove off, Dylan would be committed.

11:09:04 AM  
COLUMBINE HIGH SCHOOL

The cafeteria of Columbine was starting to fill with students on their lunch break. At some point, earlier that morning, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold planted two 20 pound propane bombs in the cafeteria. Both bombs were set to explode at 11:17, just as the cafeteria would reach the peak of the lunch time rush.

Each bomb was strung with nails and BBs for shrapnel, lashed to a full gasoline can and a smaller propane tank, and wired to bell clocks similar to the decoy bomb. Both bombs were hidden in blue duffel bags. The plan was to kill as many students as possible in the explosions, and to execute survivors. Again, Dylan eased into killing. Clicking over the alarm hinge was bloodless and impersonal. It didn't feel like killing for him-no blood, no screams, just a big fireball. In his mind, most of his murders would be over before he faced them.

The massive fireball would annihilate most of the lunch crowd and set the school ablaze in a huge ball of flames. Eric spaced the bombs out but located centrally, for maximum killing radius. If they had worked, the bombs would have collapsed some of the second floor. Eric had hoped to watch the library and its inhabitants crash down upon the flaming lunchers.

The bomb planting was not caught on the cafeteria surveillance cameras, possibly because of a tape change.

Eric and Dylan made a brisk exit and flared across the parking lot at a 90 degree angle. They headed for their cars, strategically parked about a hundred yards apart. The cars provided mobile base camps, where they would gear up to mow down survivors. Pre-positioning ensured optimal fire lanes. The bombs would detonate at 11:17, and the densely packed wing would crumble. As the flames leapt up into the sky, Eric and Dylan would train their guns on the exits and await for the survivors.

That morning, possibly during third hour philosophy class, Brooks Brown and his classmates had a big test on Chinese philosophy. Eric was always Type A about his grades. He wouldn't ditch class if there was a test or an assignment due. It really struck Brooks that Eric wouldn't show up that day.

In class, Brooks sat at his desk with his left hand holding his head. He looked like his was in a daze, as if he had the thousand yard stare. When they got to fourth hour that day, though, he still wasn't in class. Even Brooks only ditched one class in a row, usually. And Dylan wasn't there either.

11:10:15 AM  
HALLWAYS

Another student of Columbine was 17 year old John Savage. He had just completed a music class. He had gotten to school early. Did some homework. It was just one of those days where you don't expect anything to happen. He and other students had just finished string orchestra. John was trying to decide whether or not to practice way back in the back of the school in the band room or go to the library.

Among the teachers on duty at the school was David Sanders. He was a popular sports coach in the school because of his ability to get the best of the least likely of the athletes.

Patti Nielson was a 35 year old teacher working part time at the school. Normally, she'd head home after her morning art classes, but today she had been assigned to monitor the hall ways, which has just started to fill with hundreds of students heading for lunch in the cafeteria.

Eric pulled into the parking lot at 11:10, several minutes behind the attack schedule. A couple of girls spotted his car as they headed out for lunch. They honked and waved. They liked him. Eric waved back and smiled.

11:11:36 AM

Everyday after creative writing, Brooks Brown came outside to smoke a cigarette, which was legal before 9/11. He took the same route that he did every day: Out for a smoke and walk around.

This day, he noticed Eric in his Honda park in the small junior parking, about a hundred yards to Dylan's right when he would pull into the parking lot. Eric had the choice spot, directly facing the student entrance, where the bulk of the survivors would presumably flee from the carnage. He could also cover the full southeast side of the building and interlock his fire with Dylan's fire to his left without endangering him. Eric Harris was wearing a black duster, which would later be called a trench coat; a white T-shirt with the inscription 'NATURAL SELECTION' on the front; black combat boots and a finger-less black glove on his right hand. His short hair, duster and his shades made him look like Neo from _T__he Matrix._

He got out and headed to the trunk of his car. Making sure no one was looking, he opened the trunk and sorted through the goods. He grabbed some pipe bombs and a bottle containing a yellow yet explosive liquid and put them in his right coat pocket. He put a container of bullets in his back pack and a sawed-off Savage-Springfield 67H 12-gauge pump shotgun in the belt inside his trench coat.

He had missed two hours of school, so Brooks Brown decided to see what was going on, and he called him a few name. Eric laughed and tossed a few names back with a little energy as Brooks was cussing him out basically. It was weird that Eric didn't shoot him for that, but he cussed Eric out.

Eric and Brooks have had a tempestuous history. A year earlier, Brooks, tipped off by Dylan, found his name on Eric's website. Eric was threatening to kill him.

There was also information on there that Eric and Dylan were building and detonating pipe bombs. On his website, Eric said essentially he wanted to kill Brooks Brown. Brooks' parents reported Eric's threat to the police. This was not the first time Eric's name had been brought to the attention of the police in the two years before the shooting. But they were unable to access Eric's website, and mislaid paper work related to the complaint.

If they acted on these claims, Eric would've been in jail or a mental hospital. It's very simple, and Columbine massacre never should have have happened. In the meantime, Brooks Brown had made his own peace with Eric. It probably saved his life.

"What the hell is wrong with you, man?" Brooks raged. "You weren't in third hour. You missed the test. Dude, you missed a huge test."

Eric chuckled. "It doesn't matter anymore…Brooks, I like you now. Get out of here. Go home." And with that, Eric put his shades and walked on to the cafeteria.

"Okay…" Brooks wondered. There's a lot of theories why Eric didn't shoot him. Brooks personally thinks, because he remembers the look on Eric's face, he didn't wanna kill him. He wasn't the only person that good, like John Savage, actually. He was friends with him. Nicknamed Screach, he was a great guy.

John Savage had decided to revise for his history test in the library, where the worst of the Columbine massacre would take place.

11:12:51 AM

Dylan Klebold drove to his normal spot in the senior parking lot and parked his BMV directly in front of the cafeteria, about a hundred yards to Eric's left. When the attack began, this would afford him a clear sweep of the southwest side of the building: the long, wide arc of green-tinted windows that wrapped the commons on the first floor and the library above.

He was wearing a black duster, which would later be called a trench coat; a black T-shirt with the red inscription "WRATH" across the front; a finger-less black glove on the left hand, because he was left-handed; black pants with a black belt which had been partially cut away; black combat boots and a backwards Boston Red Sox black baseball cap. On his left boot was a Soviet medallion and he wore a silver colored ring with a black stone on the ring finger of his left hand.

Eric and Dylan had arrived with a huge arsenal of weapons. After the attack, the police would count an two 9mm guns, being an Intratec TEC-DC9 and a Hi-Point 995 Carbine rifle, two sawed off shotguns, being a Savage 67H pump-action shotgun and a Stevens 311D double barreled sawed-off shotgun and ninety-nine bombs, including the 20 pound propane bombs in the cafeteria, the propane bomb in the field to the south, and booby-trap bombs in each of their cars.

Eric joined Dylan at his car as he grabbed his weapons and set his car bomb.

They had spent a year gathering these weapons. A year planning a massacre intended to wipe the school off the map was beginning to take shape. Dylan met up with Eric at the school entrance.

MARCH 15, 1999

Just a month before the attack, an unreleased video tape revealed the full extent of Eric and Dylan's preparations. The camera man was Dylan. The location: Eric's bedroom. Eric revealed dozens of hiding places, containing what amounts to a small armaments factory.

How did Eric succeed in concealing such a vast collection of lethal weaponry? The question still remains unanswered.

"Oh, my God!" Dylan exclaimed at the sight of the shotgun Eric got him. Eric rubbed his palm on the smooth sawed off butt of the massive hand cannon. Dylan took it, still holding the camera, and admired it in awe, rubbing his fingers on the double barrels.

Eric showed Dylan everything as he recorded. He revealed explosive material, bullets, different types of explosives and a smoke grenade. He also had the propane tanks. He unsheathed a huge knife with a swastika near the handle. He also showed him a freakish knife with spikes on the handle, a very long knife and two switches blades.

"Yeah!" Dylan happily hissed at the camera, showing some finger devil horns. "Yeah!"

Not surprisingly, Eric's parents have not spoken publicly since the massacre.

"Hi mom!" Eric said, waving at the camera. "What's going on?"

But his play acting at the end of the tape showed that Eric was well aware of his skills in the art of deception.

Dylan's words from home video:

"_It'll be The Most nerve racking fifteen minutes of my life. After the bombs are set and we're waiting to charge through the school…Seconds will be like Hours...God, I can't wait!_"

11:15:15 AM

In a far corner in the school parking lot, Neil Gardner was taking a quick lunch with Andy Martin, a security guard at Columbine. Gardner was a local police officer with a special responsibility for the school students and teachers. In the past, he had seen Dylan Klebold around the school, but he didn't know Eric Harris. And he did not appear to know that Eric and Dylan had already been in trouble with the police and the courts.

LITTLETON, COLORADO  
JANUARY 30, 1998

15 months earlier, Eric and Dylan had broken into a van and stolen electrical equipment. They were later caught.

Eric and Dylan approached a white van, calm and cool. Eric had a pair of ski gloves to mask finger print detection. Dylan, wearing the hat he would wear during the massacre, also with some jeans and tennis shoes. His brown shirt, which had short sleeves and red long sleeves, had a red star and a black skull inside the star. Eric wore pants, a shirt, a sweater and a backwards KMFDM cap.

Walking backwards, Dylan waited until his back was a feet in front of the doors of the back of the van. When he made sure no one was in sight but Eric, he turned around and jumped on the back doors of the van. He shook the van then jumped off. Dylan then joined Eric at the front of the van. Hands in their pockets, Eric and Dylan both casually leaned on the hood, acting as if they were just relaxing.

Then, Eric took guard duty and gave Dylan the dirty work. Dylan put on one of Eric's ski gloves and tried to punch out a window. They had no idea how solid a car window was. He hit it again and again. Nothing. Eric took over. Just as useless. Dylan went for a rock. He hauled up a boulder, hurled it into the glass, and even that was deflected. It took several blows before the rock crashed through. Dylan put the other glove on, then pressed his back against the passenger side door. Looking right then left, he reached in to unlock the door. He opened it and started digging through the pile like crazy.

Eric ran back to man the getaway car. Dylan grabbed anything that looked interesting. He flung everything else all over the van. By his count, he grabbed one briefcase, one black pouch, one flashlight, a yellow object, and electrical stuff. Dylan ran arm loads of loot back to the Honda. Eric continued to stand guard. Another car approached.

"V, freeze," Eric called. "Don't move. Car coming."

Dylan froze; the car passed. Unfazed, Dylan ran back to grab more.

"That's enough!" Eric ordered, growing wary. "Let's go."

They were later arrested on felony charges of criminal trespass and theft. At their court hearings, both were ordered to undergo courses designed to steer juveniles away from crime. After completing his course, Eric Harris seemed contriumph.

Eric Harris' Anger Management class essay video:

"_I'm happy to say, that with the help of this class, and some other diversion related experiences, I do want to try and control my anger_."

Eric's private journal told a different story.

Eric's Journal: "_Isn't America supposed to be the land of the free? How come, if I'm free, I can't deprive a stupid fucking dumb shit from his possessions if he leaves them sitting in the front seat of his fucking van, out in plain sight and in the middle of fucking nowhere, on a Fri-fucking-day night. NATURAL SELECTION. Fucker should be shot_."

Their encounter with the law reveals the existence of a kind of parallel universe. While outwardly apologetic and reformed, Eric and Dylan were now bonded by a shared rage.

Dylan's writing on Eric's 1998 yearbook:

"_My wrath from January's incident will be GOD-LIKE! Not to mention our revenge in the Commons_."

APRIL 20, 1999  
COLUMBINE HIGH SCHOOL  
11:16:18 AM

The Commons was the Columbine cafeteria. Eric and Dylan had drawn up detailed plans for the attack. The bombs were set to explode at one minute at a time. There were 480 students inside, almost a quarter of the school's population.

At 11:18, the school stood intact. Some kids had already made it through the lunch lines and were strolling outside, settling onto the lawn for a little picnic. No sign of disturbance. The timing devices were not precise. No digital readouts with seconds counting down in red numerals; they were old-fashioned clocks with a third little alarm hand positioned two-fifths of the way between 3 and 4. But they should have blown by now, but didn't.

Hundreds of students streamed out the student entrance. They hoped into their cars and zipped away. Time for Plan B. But there was no Plan B. Eric had staggering confidence in himself. He left no indication that he planned for contingencies. Dylan left no indication that he planned much of anything else.

They could just proceed to Act II: mow the departers down in a cross fire and advance on the exits as scripted. The bomb failure appears to have rattled only one of the boys. Dylan. Either boy might have panicked, but Eric was unflappable, the reverse of his partner.

Getting out of his car, Eric acted swiftly to retrieve his emotional partner. He was in the prime location yet abandoned it to come to Dylan's, moving quickly. Within two minutes, Eric had figured out the bombs had failed.

He grabbed his packs, crossed the lot to Dylan's BMW, rushed with him to the building, and climbed the external stairs to the west exit.

Richard Castaldo was on his way out to meet up with his friend, Rachel Scott. They planned to have lunch just outside the school's west entrance. In their dusters, called trench coats, Eric and Dylan attracted little attention. They had often worn this uniform to school.

Discreetly, Eric and Dylan got out their weapons from their weapons from their trench coats, Eric carrying the carbine rifle and the pump-action shotgun and Dylan carrying the TEC-DC9 and the double-barreled shotgun. The attack was now just seconds away.

"Hey," Rachel greeted Richard. "How's it going?"

When Richard Castaldo first sat down with Rachel, starting to eat their lunches, they saw a couple of guys coming to their left. They threw, Richard didn't know what it was right then, it was a pipe bomb. It went off and it didn't really do anything. Richard thought they were screwing around, as like a senior prank or something because the school year was about to end.

Eric and Dylan cocked their guns.

"Go! Go!" They both yelled. Dylan advanced as Eric shot at Castaldo and Scott with his Carbine.

**Review. Thx.**


	2. Killing Spree Begins

11:17:04 AM

Rachel was hit first, by half a second before Richard was hit. Richard suffered five gunshot wounds to his left arm, chest, back and abdomen. His lungs, kidney, and spleen were damaged and one of his vertebrae was fractured between the shoulders, leaving him paralyzed. He saw Rachel fall on her back out of the corner of his eye. When he fell, he braced himself.

He could hear Rachel crying and was sure she had been shot too. Though he had seen Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold around campus before, Richard did not know them and hadn't recognized them when they opened fire.

Eric shot at them again and Rachel was hit again and killed. Dylan cheered him on.

A freshman named Danny Rohrbough went to the commons to meet up with two of his friends. After a few minutes, they decided to head out for a smoke. They headed out a side exit at the worst moment, directly alongside the senior parking lot.

Dylan regrouped with Eric at the top of the West Staircase as Danny and his friends, Sean Graves and Lance Kirklin, were walking up the staircase directly below the shooters.

They saw the gunmen firing, but assumed it was a paint ball game or a senior prank. It looked like fun. They rushed straight toward the shooters, to get closer to the action and possibly participate in the 'game'. Danny got out ahead, making it halfway up the stairs. Eric pivoted and aimed his 9mm Carbine. He fired repeatedly.

A shot tore through Danny's left knee: in the front and out the back. He stumbled and began to fall. Eric fired again and again. As Danny collapsed, he took a second bullet to the chest and a third to the abdomen. The upper round went straight through him as well, causing severe trauma to his heart. The third shot lacerated his liver and stomach, causing major organ damage and lodging inside.

Lance tried to catch Danny, but realized he had been hit, too, multiple times, in the chest, leg, knee, and foot.

Falling, Danny's face hit the hard concrete sidewalk. Lance went down on the grass. He blacked out, but continued to breathe.

Sean laughed, thinking it was a game of paint ball or something. Then he felt a shot zip by his neck. It left a cool breeze in its wake. He felt of couple of pricks, like an IV needle being pulled out. He didn't realize he had been shot. He looked around to see both of his friends down. Pain signals finally reached his brain. It felt like someone had kicked him in the back. He ran back for the cafeteria door. He nearly made it, but the pain overcame him. His legs gave out, and he collapsed. He couldn't feel his legs anymore. He could not understand what had happened. It looked like he had been shot with a tranquilizer gun.

Emergency call:

_"I saw, I saw them throwing, I saw them throw a couple of grenades on the roof and they exploded. And then I saw them shooting guns down toward the parking lot."_

When Brooks Brown first heard the shots, he didn't realize they were gun blasts. He first thought they were BB guns as a prank. When he realized what they were, he called his father, saying there was a shooting at the school.

Inside the school, no one was exactly sure what was going on. Some thought it was just a prank by senior students. Dave Sanders realized it might be much more serious.

Neil Gardner received a panic radio message from inside the school.

_"Neil, I need you in the lunchroom urgently."_

As Neil drove towards the school, he first thought it was just merely an accident on the school grounds.

11:22:39 AM

Eric then turned and began shooting south, away from the school, at five students sitting on the grassy knoll adjacent to the steps, opposite the West Entrance of the school. They were chatting under a clump of pines trees in the grass, speculating what was going on. As the first shots hit the grass next the them. They realized was going on.

"He's shooting at us!" someone yelled. "Run!"

No one argued with him or her as they took off running. Michael Johnson was hit but kept running and escaped. Mark Taylor fell to the ground, crippled, and played dead. The other three escaped uninjured.

As the shooting continued, Sean Graves stood up and limped down the staircase into the cafeteria's side entrance, where he collapsed in front of the door. Dylan walked down the steps heading toward the cafeteria.

"Help," Lance whispered after he regained consciousness. He was on his back and holding his chest, where his gun shot wound was and grabbing at Dylan's pants, not realizing that it was Dylan, who was one of the gunmen.

"Sure," Dylan retorted standing above Lance, aiming his shotgun at Lance's face. "I'll help you." He shot Lance Kirklin once more in the face, critically wounding him, but he survived. Lance lost consciousness.

As Daniel Rohrbough struggled down the steps towards the bottom of the staircase, Dylan walked up to him and shot him in the back at close range with his shotgun, killing him.

CAFETERIA

Dave Sanders stood up on a table, getting everyone's attention. "All right, everyone. We think there is someone shooting outside. I want you—quiet. I want you all to make your way outside. This way only."

OUTSIDE  
11:24:05 AM

Eric took off his trench coat and pulled out his Carbine rifle again. As Dylan regrouped with him, Eric began to shoot down the steps at several students sitting near the cafeteria's entrance with his Carbine, laughing, shooting. Dylan hurled some pipe bombs. Eric spotted seventeen year old Anne Marie Hochhalter getting up from the curb to make a run for it. He fired, hitting her with a painfully, well shot 9mm round. She kept running, in pain and slowed down, but Eric hit her again. This time she went down. She would spend the rest of her life paralyzed from the waist down.

_Finally, the bitch goes down_, the clinical psychopath thought.

CAFETERIA

As students evacuated the cafeteria, girls were screaming and guys cussing like someone had farted in a car with malfunctioning windows. Dave Sanders continued directing them. "Do NOT go out into the parking lot!"

Many students and teachers made 911 calls.

_"Jefferson County, 911," _an emergency woman said.

"Yes, there's something going on at Columbine High School. Someone's shooting a gun out here and someone got shot, I think."

_"Okay, did you see anything going on over there?"_

"No. Someone said something about a gun. I'm not sure."

_"Okay, hold on with me."_

Within seconds, Dave Sanders and two other Columbine staff members had evacuated most of the cafeteria. Eric and Dylan's bombs were due to explode, but they failed to detonate.

Dave Sanders now embarked on a determined attempt to secure as much of the school as possible.

"Quiet! Quiet! Even if they come in, stay very still! Okay?" And he was off. He would spend the next two minutes running through the hallways and class rooms doing all he could to make sure that the students had some form of protection.

CAFETERIA

Dylan continued his way down the hill toward Sean. Someone ran out and dragged to him to the cafeteria entrance.

"Stop," an adult told Sean's rescuer. "It's too dangerous to move a seriously injured person."

The student reluctantly followed her request. "I'll come back for you, man."

Sean ended up propped in the entrance, with the door pressed against.

Sean groaned as someone planted a foot onto his back while trying to get out.

"Oh, sorry, dude," the student apologized as he left.

A janitor came by and reassured Sean. He held Sean's hand.

"I'll stay with you," the janitor assured him. "But I gotta help the kids escape. If one of them comes, play dead."

Sean nodded as he left and willingly obliged.

Dylan fell for it or pretended to. He stepped right over Sean's almost passed out body and stepped inside with an expression of determination yet nervousness on his face.

A stampede was right in Dylan's sight. And in his range, too. The lunch crowd had panicked despite Sanders' orders. Most took cover under tables; some ran for the stairs. Dave Sanders could heard the commotion in the faculty lounge. In an act of selfless heroics, he ran toward the danger. He didn't think or care about the danger. He was a loving teacher, and a compassionate friend to everyone. His only interest and instinct at that moment was to save the kids of Columbine High School.

He had just burst in the commons and took charge when two custodians followed him to assist.

"Run!" he screamed. He looked around. There were exits in three directions, but they mostly looked bad. Across the commons and up the wide concrete stairway to the second floor seemed the most opportune and only appropriate option available. Whatever was up there, anyway was better than here. He led the way in selfless heroism. He didn't care about himself. Look after the kids first, himself later.

There were twenty four steps. About a hundred were caught on the staircase, racing for cover on the second floor. They were wedged and stuck between each other and the steel railings. There wasn't anywhere to take cover. And it wasn't wise to take cover where the gunmen could just simply come over there and pick them off. Being arrayed at different heights for easy access wasn't a good idea. Crouching was not an option either-still easy targets and anyone attempting to stop would get trampled. The commons was roughly one hundred feet wide.

Dylan was in easy firing range. One or two pipe bombs or one burst from his TEC-DC9 would have halted the entire advance. Hitting one person at the at the top of the stairs would've caused that person to fall back down the stairs. Chain reactions would occur that would knock everyone down. That would've made them even easier targets as they would try to get up.

Dylan took a few steps closer in, lifted his shotgun up to firing position.

Without Eric to lead by example or give him encouragement, Dylan appeared to lose his nerve. He swept his shotgun in an arc across the room. He watched the students disappear up the stairs. He did not fire. Eric would have. He had only engaged his shotgun twice. Dylan looked around, then turned and stepped back over Sean. Sean used all the strength he had left not to groan in pain as the heavy door whacked Sean hard again in its grip. Dylan made to rejoin Eric at the top of the stairs.

OUTSIDE

Eric and Dylan threw several pipe bombs that landed on the roof, parking lot and grassy hill. They stood in awe as some of them erupted in hellish fireballs. They didn't do any damage though.

By the time Dylan had rejoined Eric, they had used up all the easy targets already. Everybody outside had run like hell or found hiding places. One last pack of students were still in the open. They had fled across the senior, climbed over the chain-link fence, and were racing across the soccer field near the base of Rebel Hill. They were running as if the Devil himself was chasing them.

Eric fired at them. They were too far. Not out of range, just too hard to hit. Dylan fired at the distant targets with a three bullet burst from his TEC-DC9, bringing his total bullet toll up to five.

INSIDE THE SCHOOL

In a science lab on the upper floor of the school, 17 year old Aaron Hancey was completing a homework project.

It was a lunch time. It was a regular class. But within a few minutes, they started hearing things. It was kind of weird, because you didn't usually hear those type of sounds.

Aaron and his classmates started to hear and then actually feel the gunshots going off. They felt the floor and walls move. It made Aaron and his class mates really curious at that point, because they had no idea what was going on, but shortly after when a teacher came in. A pipe bomb went off and everybody gasped.

A teacher came in and the students found out what was going on. "Everyone get down behind your work benches! I'm gonna lock the door so that no one can get in…"

Everyone got down behind the work stations as the teacher locked the door. They could leave, you could go through them, but you couldn't come in.

OUTSIDE

Dylan regrouped with Eric. "This is what we've always wanted to do!" Dylan exclaimed with pride. "This is…awesome."

"Let's do it," Eric said, nodding in agreement. They marched towards the school.

As Sanders ushered kids to safety, Patti Nielson was pacing above him on hall monitor duty when she heard the racket outside. Some kids ran up to her.

"Someone's shooting outside!" one shouted as they ran.

"Oh, for God's sake," Patti groaned to herself. "It's obviously a prank or some video shoot. This crap has been going on for far too long."

As she looked down the corridor to the west exit, she saw Eric, his back to her, through the the large glass panes in the doors. She saw the gun he was firing into the senior lot. She stormed down the hallway, assumed it was a loud and inappropriate prop. Eleventh grade student Brian Anderson came along to watch.

As they approached the exit, Eric spotted them. He turned, raised his rifle to his shoulder, aimed at them and smiled. Then he fired.

As student and teacher reached the final door, the glass shattered. The bullet missed though. Nielson still thought it was a BB gun until she saw the size of the hole in the glass.

"Dear God!" she screamed. "Dear God! Dear God!"

Flying glass and shrapnel had injured Anderson and Nielson. Gasping in panic, they ran to library, where Zack and Cody and Bailey were. Eric and Dylan entered the school through the west entrance.

OUTSIDE

Officer Neil Gardner was the first police officer on the scene. The first 911 call came through to Jeffco at the same time.

"Some got it," the caller said. "I think she's paralyzed."

_"Female down," _a dispatcher said.

As he pulled into the senior parking lot, Gardner saw smoke rising and kids running. He heard gunshots and explosions and a flurry of dispatches on his radio.

"Andy, get down," Gardner told him as Eric opened fire on the cop car. Gardner got out, took cover behind his car and exchanged fire with Eric, who shot out a window at the school entrance.

Eric fired ten rounds, all misses, but he hit two cars in front of Gardner twice. Dylan just stood behind him.

Gardner took cover behind his police car. Eric didn't even hit that. He put in another 10 round clip in his rifle. He rose to fire, but his rifle jammed. Eric fought to clear the chamber. Dylan retreated further into the school.

Gardner saw his opening. He laid his pistol across the hood and fired four shots. Eric spun around like he'd been hit. Gardner momentarily believed that he may have hit one of the gunmen.

Eric cleared the jam and fired again seconds later. It was a short burst; then he retreated inside further.

"Fuck this," Eric groaned, walking away.

By that time, Eric did most of the shooting. He fired his Carbine forty seven times. He didn't use his shotgun. Dylan shot twice with his shotgun and three times with his TEC-DC9.

OUTSIDE  
11:24 AM

"Code 33. Shots fire," Gardner reported to his radio when the bullets stopped flying.

_"Shots in the building,"_ his radio responded. _"Several shots. Code 33."_

"Attention, all units..." a female voice spoke on the radio.

The end of the gun battle with Gardner marked the beginning of Eric and Dylan's attack inside the school.

HALLWAYS

Eric and Dylan wreaked havoc and chaos in the school hallways. They shot at anyone they saw and threw pipe bombs. Shots rang out, bombs exploded, and students ran screaming and cursing.

Dylan turned around and shot east down the main north hallway, while Eric was looking south down the library hallway. A student stopped in his tracks and ran for his life. Dylan continued shooting east as three students ran for cover, then shot down the south down the empty library hallway.

A student laid herself to the way as Eric and Dylan moved the north main hallway, laughing and firing their weapons. The lockers banged loudly as the gunmen shot at three fleeing students.

Seventeen year old Stephanie Munson and another student came out of a classroom and ran for their lives when she saw Dylan and Eric come around the corner. Dylan raised his shotgun and fired.

"Aaah!" Stephanie screamed as she was hit in the ankle. She was able to limp out of the school and make it to a house across the street.

Dylan continued east in the hallway, shooting toward the front east entrance. A student watched in horror and out of sight. Another ran into a classroom to hide.

Eric walked east toward the east entrance. Dylan ran back toward the library as Eric regrouped with him.

A boy peeked out of the choir room just in time to see Dave Sanders flee. He wasn't just running for it, he was trying to clear students out of the line of fire.

"Get down!" he yelled.

LIBRARY

In the library, the rest of the students and teachers were freaking out. Patti Nealson took a phone and dialed 911.

"Out of the way! Get down! There's a kid with a gun outside!" She yelled as she moved for the phone. "Everyone, get down! Get under the tables!"

Everyone was kinda too shocked to actually do anything. They were trying to figure it out. When Nielson yelled it again, they ducked under the tables.

Nielson hid under the counter with the phone glued to her ear.

"I think we're in for one wild day," someone theorized.

"This is worse than the time I tried my Aunt Ginny's corn puddin'. That stuff will drop you like an anchor."

First, John Savage just thought it was just some random person that came in off the street. You know, just some crazy maniac or something. It didn't even click at that time that it could've been a student, much less two. He didn't think anyone at Columbine would start shooting people. He just sat and waited. They were just hoping they weren't going to die.

HALLWAYS

Dylan kicked a folder, sending papers everywhere. He chuckled with his shotgun slung on his left shoulder and his TEC-DC9 in his right hand at his thigh. Eric held his carbine rifle like a Marine, patrolling the hallways, being more alert.

Dylan turned around and walked past Eric. The depressed hot head looked around as if he missed something. Nothing here.

Slinging his rifle on his back, Eric lit and slid a pipe bomb down the library hallway floor. It exploded with a great roar, huge flames and destroying some lockers. More fire bells rang.

"Oooh!" Dylan exclaimed. "Yeah! Ha ha ha ha!"

Eric pulled back out his rifle and he and Dylan continued their march down the halls.

LIBRARY

Nielson held her phone to her ear.

_"911, what is your emergency?"_

"I'm a teacher at Columbine," she stuttered. "There is a student here with a gun. He shot out a window...I believe...Um..."

_"Columbine High School?"_

"I don't what's in my shoulder, if it's just glass or what"

_"Okay. Has anyone been injured?"_

"I am. Yes! Yes! And the school's in a panic, and I'm in the library. I've got...Students down! Under the table, kids! Heads under the tables! Kids are screaming and the teachers are trying to take control of things. We need police here..."

_"Okay, we're getting them there."_

"Can you please hurry up?"

_"Do you know who the student is, ma'am?"_

"I do not know who the student is."

_"Okay."_

"I saw a student outside, I was in the hall..."

A shot rang out.

"Oh, dear God! I was on hall duty. I saw a gun. I said, 'What's going on out there?' Thought it was a video production, probably a film festival. I don't think that's a good idea, and...I went walking out...to see what was going on. He pointed the gun straight at tus and shot...and my God, the window was shot out. And the kid standing there with me, I think he got hit."

_"Okay."_

"I have something in my shoulder."

_"We got help on the way, ma'am."_

The repeating sound of Eric and Dylan shooting the lockers scared the shit out of Bailey.

"Oh, God!" Patti screamed. "Oh, God!"

HALLWAYS

Eric and Dylan shot random lockers just for the fun of shooting their weapons and taking out their anguish and pain on the lockers of those who treated the like shit. It was a waste of ammunition, though.

Dave Sanders and a student were still trying to clear the hallways. "Make sure the science labs are locked," Dave said as theyr an up the stairs." Five more police units were nearing the school.

Sanders and the student stopped in their tracks as they spotted Eric and Dylan. They both ran as Dylan raised his TEC-DC9 machine gun pistol and fired. He hit Sanders but missed the student. The student ran into science classroom SCI-1 and alerted the teacher inside.

One bullet got Dave in the back. It tore through his rib cage and exited through his chest. The other bullet entered through the side of his neck and came out of his mouth, lacerating his tongue and shattering several teeth. The neck wound opened up one of his carotid arteries, the major blood routes to the brain. The shot to his back clipped his subclavian vein, a major vessel back to the heart.

Dave crashed into the lockers, then collapsed, losing consciousness.

Dylan again shot east down the north hallway while Harris looked for something in his duffel bag. Dylan slowly strolled down the hall and stood over Sanders. He pointed his TEC-DC9 down the hall, looking for the other student. He shrugged and ran back the way he came, his trench coat flowing with him.

Dave Sanders was badly injured. The killing spree inside the school was about to begin.

**Review. Thx.**


	3. Library Massacre

**Dave Sanders is the biggest Hero of Columbine. God rest and bless his soul. **

Just as Dylan had left, Rich Long, head of the technology department and a close friend of Dave Sanders, found him on the floor.

"Dave, you've got to get up!" Rich yelled. "We've got to get out of here!"

Dave pulled himself up, staggered a few feet around the corner. Rich hurried over. As soon as he was out of the line of fire, he ducked his shoulder under Dave's arm. Another teacher got Dave from the other side, and they dragged him to the science wing, just a dozen feet away.

"Rich, they shot me in the teeth," Dave winced.

They moved past the first and second classrooms, then entered Science Room 3.

As the door opened and Dave and his rescuers came in, Dave started coughing blood.

The room was full of students. Their teacher had gone out to the hallway to investigate. When he came back, he told them to forget the test and ordered everybody up against the wall. The classroom door had a glass pane. To shooters who might have been stalking through the halls, the room would appear empty if everyone huddled along the interior perimeter.

That's when Dave stumbled in with two teachers assisting him. He collapsed again, face-first, in front of the room. He left a couple of teeth where he landed. They got him into a chair.

"Rich, I'm not doing so well," Dave groaned.

"You'll be okay," Rich assured him. "I'm going to go phone for help."

Several teachers had arrived, so Rich ran back out into the melee, searching for a phone. He learned that somebody was already calling for help. He went back inside.

"I need to go get you some help," Rich told Dave. He went back into the smoky corridor and tried another lab. But the killers were getting closer, apparently right outside the lab's door this time. Rich finally took cover.

LIBRARY

Cassie Bernall and her friend Emily Wyant got under a table and tried to barricade themselves in by pulling some chairs around their tiny perimeter. That made them feel a little safer. Cassie crouched by the window side of the table, looking in toward the room, and Emily got down at the other end, facing Cassie two feet away. They could keep in contact with each other that way and collectively maintain a view of the whole room. The chairs created a lot of blind spots, but the girls were not about to move them. That was the only protection they had.

"Dear God, dear God, why is this happening?" Cassie asked. "I just want to go home."

"I know," Emily agreed. "We all want to get out of here."

Cassie started praying very quietly.

Patti Nielson hugged to phone to her ear.

"...are getting shot off. I do not know who the student was. I don't even-I saw him. He was wearing black. He looked very large. Um. Male student. Um...He was out there shooting..."

Patti, and everyone else jumped as Eric blew up a pipe bomb in the hallway.

"It looked like he was..." Patti tried to continue. "...out shooting and somebody- I said 'What is that?'."

_"Mmhmm," _the Jefferson County dispatcher said.

Another pipe bomb erupted outside.

"I said 'What's going on out there?' Well it's probably a cap gun. Probably a video production, you know, they do these videos..." Nielson continued to the phone.

_"Right."_

"And the kids...Well, I said-That's not, you know, a play gun, a real gun, I was goin' out there to say 'No'. And I went..."

A very loud shot rang off.

_"Oh, my God! That was really close! That just rattled me."_

"Okay."

11:26:40 AM

Columbine student Aaron Hancey was still hiding in a science room when one of his teachers returned, trying to find anyone who knew first aid.

"Who knows first aid?" teacher Kent Friesen asked.

"I do. Yeah," Aaron answered.

"Come with me," Friesen said.

Aaron, the two teacher male and female teachers made a mad dash across the hallway. Bombs were still exploding, guns were still being fired. The gunmen could have come around there anytime.

Aaron could feel it through the walls. With each gun shot or pipe bomb blast, he could feel the walls move.

Dave Sanders was in desperate need of medical attention. The trio went into the science room and found Dave on his stomach.

"Mr. Sanders?" Aaron asked. Dave could only groan in pain. "It's okay. We're here to help you. It's Aaron. The paramedics are on their way."

When Aaron came to him, Dave was conscious, fully aware of what was going on and on his stomach. Aaron immediately thought Dave had been shot with a shotgun. In the chest at close range or something like that.

Aaron ran through a rapid inspection of Dave's condition: breathing steady, airway clear, skin warm, shoulder broken, gaping wounds, heavy blood loss. Aaron stripped off his own white Adidas T-shirt to stanch the flow. Other boys volunteered their shirts. No girls volunteered, unfortunately. Aaron tore several into bandage strips and improvised a few tourniquets. He bundled others together into a pillow.

"We're gonna push you a little back on your back, here. One...two...three," Aaron told Sanders. As they gently pushed Dave onto his back, they discovered that Dave Sanders had an entry wound in each shoulder. "It's gonna be okay. Okay. Are you cold? Yes? Do you need a blanket?"

Aaron grabbed a jacket and covered Dave with it. When Aaron looked over the situation, it looked bad. Yeah, Dave Sanders had been shot. That was no small cookie. But he was conscious and very aware of his surroundings. "He's doing great. You're doing...you're doing great, Mr. Sanders."

"I'll call for help," teacher Teresa Miller said. She tried calling 911, but the lines were constantly busy.

"You're doing great, Mr. Sanders. Don't worry. Help is on the way," Aaron continued. "Don't worry."

Aaron thought that they could take Dave out and get him healed up, get operated on if needs be and under cover.

"I've got to go, I've go to go," Dave groaned. He tried to stand, but failed.

By then, there were six police units outside the school. Some were tending to frightened and injured students around the parking lot. Others were securing a perimeter. Following standard police procedures, which emphasize the need to contain an incident, none of the officers ventured into the school to try to challenge the killers.

LIBRARY HALL

Dylan stood outside the library, then he walked south past the library window.

Then Eric stood in the hall outside the library throwing a lit device, resembling dynamite, in a southerly direction. Moments later it exploded in the hall directly outside the library in a small and undamaging, yet hellish fireball.

11:29:21 AM  
LIBRARY

In the next seven minutes, Eric and Dylan will carry out the most brutal part of their assault on the school: the attack on the 56 students and staff hiding in the library.

Dylan came into view first at a slow pace. His shotgun laying on his left shoulder, his TEC-DC9 in his right hand hovering next to his right thigh. Eric came at a fast pace, shotgun in his right hand, his carbine slung across his back.

They stood side by side at the library door.

"Get up!" Eric yelled. Nobody moved.

"Everybody get up!" Dylan screamed. "Everybody with white hats, stand up! This is for all the shit you've given us for the past four years!"

"Everyone, get out! We're gonna blow up the library!" Eric added. "Stand up, right now or we'll blow your fucking heads off!"

_Oh, well, maybe they just wanna blow up the library as a statement_, Cody thought. _Maybe they don't want to actually hurt anybody. _John Savage actually thought about getting up and leaving and letting them blow up a bunch of books. But then, no one else got up. _Well, maybe I'll just stay._

"Fine, I'll start shooting anyway!" Eric yelled, firing two shots from his shotgun. 15 year old jock Evan Todd was hit by wooden splinters. He wasn't seriously hurt though.

_Cha-Chik_, Eric's shotgun went. The sound of the shotgun and the red shell casings bouncing on the floor was the loudest thing the people in the library could hear. It was just hells casing hitting the floor, but it was the scariest sound he heard. The noise boomed in their ears as the shells bounced on the floor.

"Oh, my God," Nielson whispered. "They're in here."

_"Okay, stay with me, ma'am," _the 911 person responded. _"You're doing great. You are doing great, okay?"_

Evan Todd used the time to conceal himself behind the administrative counter.

Eric and Dylan marched into the library. Eric held his shotgun like a Marine across his chest. Dylan stopped and shot Kyle Velasquez, who was trying to hide behind a computer desk, in the back of the head with his shotgun. He died instantly.

Evan Todd used the time to conceal himself behind the administrative counter.

"Anyone with a white hat is going to die!" Dylan ranted. "We'll get the guys in white hats!"

"Ya think?" Eric replied as they both set down their backpacks on a table and started reloading their weapons.

After they walked about half way through the library was when they came into John Savage's view, then he could see it was actually people that he knew. It was just these two people that John thought were just ordinary regular kids who were suddenly blowing things up and shooting.

_What're they doing? _John thought.

That's when Eric noticed the police evacuating students. "Let's go kill some cops."

The boys walked west between the north and south computer tables. Dylan stopped at the west end of the computer tables while Eric continued to the south of the computer tables. At the computer tables, Eric got down on his knee and he and Dylan began shooting out the west library windows.

Dylan fired rapid three-bullet bursts from his TEC-9, Eric raised his Carbine above his head in order to get a better firing angle.

"Shooters!" Gardner yelled and the police returned.

As Eric continued firing, Dylan turned away from the windows and looked Patrick Ireland, Daniel Steepleton, both 17 and Makai Hall, 19 years old, all popular athletes, hiding under a table.

Smiling, he raised his shotgun and fired, injuring all three. After a few seconds of relishing the 'power', he put down his TEC-9 on a table and removed his trench coat. He picked up his machine pistol and walked on.

Eric grabbed his shotgun and walked over to the lower row of computer desks. He slung his Carbine on his shoulder.

He then fired his shotgun underneath the first desk in the row without looking to see who was under it, then fired under the second one. The shots killed Steven Curnow and injured Kacey Ruegsegger. Kacey gasped in pain and shock.

"Quit your bitching," Eric coldly told her, walking away. Dylan laughed hysterically.

Eric walked over to the table across from the lower computer row. Emily could see his legs and his boots. Cassie Bernall cringed when he slapped the top twice with his hand. He knelt down. He poked his shotgun under the table rim as he came down. He didn't pause long, or even stoop down far enough for Emily to see his face. She saw the sawed-off gun barrel. The opening was huge. She looked into Cassie's brown eyes. She was still praying. There was no time for words between them.

"Peek a boo," Eric said. Then he cocked his shotgun and shot Cassie in the head. Everything was muffled then. The blast was so loud, it temporarily blew out most of Emily's hearing. The fire alarm had been unbearably loud, but now she could barely hear it. She could see the light flashing out in the hallway.

Eric was sloppy with the shot: a one-hander, in an awkward half squat. The shotgun kicked back, and the butt nailed him in the face. He broke his nose. Eric had his back to Bree Pasquale, so she couldn't see the gun hit his nose. But she watched him yank back on the pump handle and eject a red shell casing. It dropped to the floor.

Eric checked his nose for blood. Yep.

He turned to the next table, where student Bree Pasquale sat next to it rather than beneath it. She had not hidden underneath as there was not enough room to hide.

"You wanna die, huh?" Eric asked her.

"No."

"Do you wanna die?"

"No, no, no, no, no! I have a family, I have a fiancée, and I don't want to die," Bree pleaded. "Please, don't shoot me. I don't want to die!"

Finally, Eric let out a big laugh. "Well, everyone is going to die."

Eric was disoriented as this occurred, possibly from the wound to his face, which was bleeding heavily.

"Shoot her!" Dylan yelled.

"No, we're all gonna die. We're gonna blow up the school anyway."

Then something distracted him. He walked away.

As Eric taunted Bee, Patrick Ireland tried to aid Makai Hall, who had suffered a wound to his knee. While doing so his head came above the table. Seeing this, Dylan put his shotgun on his forearm and shot at him, hitting him twice in the head and once in the foot. He was knocked unconscious, but survived.

Dylan proceeded toward another set of tables, discovering Isaiah Shoels, Matthew Kechter, and Craig Scott, Rachel Scott's brother, all hiding under one table. All were popular athletes at the school.

"Reb!" he called, placing his shotgun on the table and kneeling, holding his TEC-DC9 pointing at the jocks. He gave them a hateful stare.

"Yeah?" Eric called, still looking at Bree.

"There's a nigger over here."

John Savage knew that Dylan was talking about Isaiah. He was an African American.

Eric left Bree Pasquale to join him. Before the innocent students could act, Dylan shot his hand under the table and grabbed Isaiah by the foot and tried to pull him out from under the table. Craig and Matthew held on to Isaiah's arms for dear life. Dylan grunted as he tried to pull Isaiah out, pointing his pistol at him, but didn't fire. Cody heard some more banging, then a gunshot.

Eric came over, aimed his shotgun and shot Isaiah in the chest at close range, killing him.

"I can't believe I just did that…cool," Eric said, relishing the slaughter.

John assumed that they had shot him, but he couldn't see them. He hoped for the best. Smiling, Dylan raised his shotgun and opened fire, hitting and killing Matthew Kechter.

"Who's ready to die next?" Eric yelled, not really expecting an answer.

MEANWHILE…

Aaron Hancey was now struggling to keep Dave Sanders conscious. With the help of a teacher and another student, as well as his father, who was phoning in first aid advice from home, Aaron used family pictures from Dave Sanders' wallet to keep him talking. It really did help him with pictures, because he could get away from 'How are you feeling? Where does it hurt?'. Get away from the pessimistic side of things and try to be optimistic and to see the things he did love.

"Yeah, you're girls want to see you," Aaron encouraged. "Is this your wife?"

"Yes," Dave whispered.

"What's your wife's name?"

"Linda."

"These people love you," the boys said. "That's why you need to live."

Eventually, Aaron and his friend Kevin lost the struggle to keep Dave conscious.

"I'm not going to make it," Dave said. "Tell my girls I love them."

LIBRARY

Eric threw a CO2 bomb at the table where Hall, Steepleton, and Ireland were. The CO2 bomb landed on Daniel Steepleton's thigh. Makai Hall grabbed the bomb and threw the bomb south. The bomb exploded in midair and a girl screamed. Smoke filled the air. Eric walked to the bookcases between the west and center section of tables in the library. He jumped on one of the bookcases and shook it.

"Listen up!" he yelled. "You fucking scared pieces of shit! This school is fucking dead!" He jumped off. He went to the other side the book case he jumped on and shot some books three times.

"Whoo!" Dylan cheered, just before shooting out a display case next to the front library door. "Ah! He-he-he-he-ha-ha-ha-ha!" He evilly chuckled. He slowly moved back around the display case and shot under the table closest to him with his shotgun, injuring Mark Kintgen.

Hearing a few girls gasping in panic, Dylan turned to his left and shot at that table, injuring Valeen Schnurr and Lisa Kreutz with the same bullet. Valeen was riddled with shotgun pellets up and down her arms and torso. The force of the bullet pushed Valeen out from under the table. Dylan walked on.

He walked forward, kicking a chair out of the way. He stopped, turned around on the spot and fired under a table with the TEC-9, killing Lauren Townshead. Eric knelt down looked at Schnurr and Kreutz.

"Pathetic!" he yelled. The two boys move south to a table where they stopped to reload weapons.

Valeen was on her knees, then her hands. Blood was streaming out of thirty four separate wounds.

"Oh my God! Oh my God, help me! Please, God, don't let me die," Valeen cried.

Dylan turned around. This was too rich. Valeen looked up, directly into the eyes of Dylan Klebold.

"You believe in God?" he sneered, as he reloaded his shotgun.

"No..." Valeen thought about lying to him, but couldn't. "Yes."

"Why, huh?" he asked, putting two new shells between his teeth.

"Because I believe...Because it's what my parents taught me," she replied as Dylan tossed the empty shells at her. "It's what I believe."

"God is gay and you're pathetic," Dylan taunted as he put in the new shells. He spared her and left. Dylan had spent his whole life as a Lutheran. Ethnically, he was a Jew because of his mother.

Eric moved to another table and shot twice underneath it, injuring both Nicole Nowlen and John Tomlin. Beneath the table, Nicole saw combat boots, then a gun. The gun blasts hit the right side of her body nine times, and five slugs lodged in her stomach.

"Are you breathing?" Dylan asked. Nicole played dead, and lived. When Tomlin tried to crawl out, Dylan came around the corner and kicked him.

"Really?" Eric taunted. "Did you really think you could escape us?"

"Don't..." John said weakly. "Done enough?"

"You think we're done enough?" Dylan said, laughing.

Eric nodded at Dylan, who shot John repeatedly with the TEC-9, killing him.

Eric walked back over to the other side of the table where Lauren Townsend was. Behind it, Kelly Fleming, like Bree Pasquale, sat next to the table rather than beneath it. Eric shot at her with his shotgun, hitting her in the back, and killing her instantly. He continued to shoot at the table behind her, hitting Townsend and Kreutz again, and wounding Jeanna Park.

The phone lines left open by Patti Nealson and Bailey Puckett recorded the sounds of the killings in the library.

Eric went to the southern library windows and looked out into the south parking lot. Eric and Dylan passed through the east side book shelves into the center section. Both shooters stood at a nearby table. They again reloaded their weapons. Eric walked north to the south computer table to gain access to the blue backpack containing additional ammunition. Then he returned to the area near tables he reloaded his weapons at.

During the shooting, you could hear Dylan saying all kinds of things to people before he shot them. But Eric didn't. There was a very distinct difference between how the two handled the shooting that day. It was incredibly difficult to listen to, even if you didn't know the people they were killing and who was killing them.

11:37 AM

The shooters moved to the center of the library, where they continued to reload their weapons at a table midway across the room. John Savage could see Eric's boots coming towards him through the rows of book shelves. _Wow, this is it, _John thought. _Man, this…like…I could die _here. It was pretty shocking.

Eric noticed John and pointed his Carbine rifle at him. "Who's under there? Identify yourself."

"It's John." They kinda knew him a little. John was hoping that he'd remember that he wasn't a jock and that he tried to treat him with respect.

Dylan came up right behind Eric. "John Savage?" he asked.

"…yeah."

Dylan head gestured to his left. Eric nodded and left.

"Hey, Dylan. What are you doing?" John asked.

"Oh, just killing people," Dylan sighed, laying his shotgun on his shoulder.

"Oh," John said. It was just creepy. "Are you gonna kill me?"

"What?" Dylan asked, because of the fire alarms.

"Are you gonna kill me?" John asked.

Dylan hesitated, biting his lip. After a moment, he spoke. "Naw, man. Just get outta here…Just run."

John didn't move, fearing he was going to shoot him anyway.

"Run…Run!" Dylan yelled, and John finally did, making a safe escape through the library's main entrance.

Eric noticed 15 year old Daniel Mauser.

"Nice glasses," he taunted before shooting Daniel, hitting him in the nose.. He was killed instantly.

"Was he trying to jump you?" Dylan asked.

"Yeah," Eric tried to say, blood pouring out of his nose. He was kind of dizzy from the recoil of the shotgun breaking his nose. The boys moved north in the center section and proceeded to the southeast corner of the far south computer table.

As the killings went on unchecked in the library, the police's presence outside continued to build. Gunshots from the library were clearly heard and reported by officers outside, who were just tens of meters away. The police now, also, had good descriptions of Eric and Dylan. But no officers would enter the school for another half an hour.

Later, police would say they received conflicting reports of a possible sniper on the roof and that there were as many as eight gunmen. Also, communications problems made coordination ever more difficult.

One of the things the police don't want you to know about that day is that on April 20, 1999, while the killings was taking place, while these innocent children are being murdered in the library, the outside library doors propped open, and the police men were standing by their cars on the lawn outside are listening to these children being murdered and they listen and they listen. They never rescued them. They let them be murdered. No matter what anyone says, that is not acceptable.

And when they talk about how they saved many kids that day, that's not fucking true. Those kids saved themselves. They came out of that school, saving themselves by themselves. The only thing the police did was prevent the killers from leaving the school by setting up a perimeter and pull Rachel Scott from the place that she was killed, only to discover that she was dead. Danny Rohrbough was left where he was killed for hours. They only saved one student, Anne Hochhalter. If they were two minutes late, she would be dead.

HALLWAYS

John Savage ran for his lives down the hallways. He was scared that the killers would change their minds, so he ran as fast as he could. Just in case they decided to come around and shoot him in the back. He finally reached the front entrance of the school.

LIBRARY

Dylan came around and shot under a table with the TEC-DC9, wounding Austin Eubanks and killing Corey DePooter. Eric came right beside him and wounded Austin again and shot Jennifer Doyle with his Carbine, shooting until it clicked.

"I'm out of ammo, and this isn't fun anymore," Eric said.

"Maybe we should start knifing people, that might be more fun," Dylan said, walking away with his shotgun on his left shoulder. They moved north in the center section and proceeded to the southeast corner of the far south computer table.

OUTSIDE

John Savage came out with his hands up at the sight of police SIGs. It made him realize how short life is. When you're young, it seems like it's going to go on forever and you have plenty of time. You don't have forever.

LIBRARY  
11:36:04 A.M

The seven minute killing spree in the library came to a sudden end just before 11:36.

The boys moved away from the table and headed toward the library's main counter. Eric threw a Molotov cocktail toward the southwestern end of the library as he went. It exploded and a few girls screamed and a guy cursed. It didn't do much damage though, mostly a flash.

Eric came around the east side of the counter and Dylan joined him from the west, both converging near where Evan Todd had moved after the copier incident.

Evan saw Dylan check the magazine room, testing the door, which was locked, before turning to the room directly east of the magazine room. He swept the room with his TEC-9 and then turned to head back in the direction where Evan was hiding. He pulled the chair out and pointed the TEC-9 in Evan's face.

"Hey, boy," Dylan said. His voice had an indescribable amount of hatred.

Evan could see Eric approaching as well, and noticed it looked as though Eric had a broken nose. He appeared a bit dizzy and wobbly; he had to catch his balance.

"What?" Eric asked.

"Just some fat fuck," Dylan replied. With the gun still in Evan's face, he asked: "Are you a jock?"

"No."

"Well, that's good. We don't like jocks." He paused. "Let me see your face." Evan took off his hat then and tilted his head back so Dylan could see him.

"Evan Todd...Give me one good reason why I shouldn't kill you," Dylan told him in anger.

"I don't want to get in trouble." He had no idea why he said that but the answer seemed to make Dylan angry.

"Trouble?" Dylan demanded. "You don't even know what fucking trouble is! You fucking little fat piece of shit!"

"That's not what I meant! I mean, I don't have a problem with you guys. I never will and I never did."

"You used to call me a fag..." Dylan said, sneering at the jock.

Dylan stared at him for a moment then looked away. He fired shot into an open library staff break room, hitting a small television, breaking glass and installing fear into Evan, his objective. Even though Dylan confronted Evan Todd, he threatened and abused, but didn't kill him.

"Who's a fag now!" he screamed, then paused. "I'm gonna let this fat fuck live, you can have at him if you want to," Dylan told Eric.

Eric didn't seem to be paying any attention to what Dylan was saying and never acknowledged him. "You want to go to the Commons?" Eric asked.

"I've one more thing to do." Dylan laid his guns on a table where the Patti Nielson hid. Dylan now seemed reduced to a gesture of repressed rage. He picked up a chair and slammed it down on the computer, sending it flying off the terminal.

"Reb!" Dylan called. "You ready?"

"Yeah, let's get the fuck outta here," Eric replied.

**Review, plz. Thanks.**


	4. Suicide

Dylan picked up his guns, his shotgun in his right hand and his TEC-DC9 in his left. When the killers left, everyone decided to leave the library.

11:36:15 AM

By the time Eric and Dylan left the library, twelve students in the school were dead, one teacher was dying and twenty three others were injured, many of them seriously. There had been no pattern to the attack. Not one of the their victims had been singled out because he or she had been a figure of hate, except for members of an oppressive school, including Evan Todd.

There were still hundreds of students and teachers hiding elsewhere in the school.

At one point, in the science room where Dave Sanders was dying, Teressa was looking out the door window, trying to see what was going on. She saw the shooters come down the hall. They stopped and reloaded their guns in front of the classroom. The door had a window in it, so they could look right in it. Teressa and Aaron Hancey just jumped away from view.

It was scary. It was for them, one of the most scariest points of the whole ordeal. They were right there. Eric and Dylan could've come in, finished Dave off and killed Teressa and Aaron.

Instead, they moved to a storage room to the right.

Eric opened the door as Dylan lit a pipe bomb and threw it inside. It erupted in a tremendous ball of flames as Eric and Dylan ran for it.

Just as they returned to the hallways, Eric turned and shot into the science room nearest to the hallways.

Dave Sanders died of exsanguination before he could be taken to the hospital. Dave was buried in Littleton's Chapel Hill Memorial Gardens. Since his death, Coach Dave Sanders has had a softball field at Columbine and a scholarship named after him, to honor his memory, and posthumously received the Arthur Ashe Courage Award. The Fountain Central High School basketball court was named after him in his honor.

It came as a shock to Aaron that he died. He thought that they could take Dave out, get him operated on and start the recovery process. It broke Aaron's heart to think and know that Dave did die, because Aaron tried his best.

HALLWAY

Eric and Dylan walked down the halls, shooting the lockers, the ceiling and the walls.

Eric Harris was full of hate. He had an indiscriminate for the entire human race. His journal proved this.

"_We hate niggers, spics, Jews, gays, fucking whites_."

But then, he also hated the concept of racism.

Words from his Internet profile:

"_I hate...You know what I hate? Racism. Anyone who hates Asians, Mexicans, or people of any race because they're different_."

Dylan shot the lockers to his left. Eric shot the ceiling with his Carbine rifle, then shot the lockers to his left as Dylan shot the ceiling in a sweeping motion.

"_You know what I hate? Star Wars fans. Getting a friggin life, you boring geeks. You know what I hate? People who drive slow in the fast lane. God these people do not know how to drive_."

With remorse showing on his face, Dylan walked behind a blank-faced Eric through the hallways.

Eric and Dylan's movements through the school now seem directionless. Eric's secret journals and video recordings leave the clear impression of a disturbed mind, filled with grandiose and destructive schemes.

"_If we survive...we'll hijack a hell of a lot of bombs and crash a plane in NYC_..." Eric Harris' typed up rant.

Dylan, however, was a mystery.

Would Dylan be a part of it, Judy Brown couldn't imagine it. But could he be caught up in it? In someway, yes. And she thinks Eric was dominant over Dylan. She, and many other people, do believe that. Judy had that kind of conversation with Dylan's mother after the shooting. That Dylan was always trying to be there for Eric and actually take care of him because Eric didn't have many friends. Dylan had lots of friends. People liked Dylan.

CAFETERIA

11:44:28 AM

Eric and Dylan arrived in the cafeteria eight minutes after leaving the library. On top of the stairs, Eric placed his shotgun down on the floor and leveled his Carbine rifle on the stair railing to improve his accuracy. Backpacks were scattered everywhere, but Eric knew which duffel bag was his.

He tried to detonate one of the 20-pound propane bombs in the cafeteria, firing endlessly until his clip ran out. The bomb still didn't detonate. It was perhaps, his first suicide bid during the attack.

The boys were easily within the blast area, but they were well aware of that. Twenty five minutes into the massacre, Eric made his second attempt to initiate the main event, and his first attempt at suicide.

In the months before, Eric had been prescribed an anti-depressant drug called Zoloft, which is commonly used to treat Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. But his condition just seemed to get worse.

He was on Zoloft for six weeks. And Eric reported that he was having both homicidal and suicidal ideations. That's where you constantly think about hurting yourself or hurting someone else or both.

Eric did realize it was coming from the medication, and so did the doctors. They took him off the medication. But all he got in exchange was a different brand name. He got Luvox.

Eric and Dylan walked down the stairs and into the table area of the cafeteria. They had a few remarks and a few sips from drinks left behind by students where the attack began.

"Today the world's going to come to an end," Dylan told Eric. "Today's the day we die."

"Hey, V," Eric called. "Go check out what's wrong with the bombs, will ya?"

Dylan silently put down the drink and walked over to one of the duffel bags. He unzipped the bags and inspected the bombs. He tsked.

"Damn it," he whispered. "Reb! A wire or two are loose. We'll have to blow 'em up manually."

"Shit," Eric groaned as he sat down on the top step.

Dylan walked away from the bombs. "Hold on," he said as he got out of Molotov cocktail bomb. He tossed it toward the bags and ran back to Eric's location. He reached the first step when the bomb partially detonated as a gallon of fuel on one of the bombs exploded, erupting in a ferocious ball of flames.

Eric and Dylan left and walked to the administrative offices located on the east side of the school shooting, as they were going. The principle and vice principle cringed as the bullets almost hit them, who were hiding in a dark room.

The gunmen left the office area and walked north through the art area, firing into the ceiling as they walked and made their way back to the cafeteria.

Several times they looked through windows on the classroom doors and even made eye contact with students, but never attempted to enter the rooms. After leaving the main office, the pair went up to a bathroom entrance and began taunting students inside.

"We know you're in there," Eric taunted.

"Hey, let's kill anyone we find in here!" Dylan suggested. But they never actually entered the bathroom.

11:56:19 AM

Eric and Dylan returned to the cafeteria and walked around everywhere, including the kitchen. Water from the sprinkler's that put out the fire still dripped from the ceiling. The lights were off, water soaked the floor, and book bags littered the cafeteria. The dripping water made it look like a cave.

Their body language in the cafeteria was vastly different than what witnesses in the library would later describe. Their shoulders drooped, and they walked slowly. The excitement had been drained out of them; the bravado was gone. Eric had also broken his nose; he was in severe pain.

At Eric Harris's autopsy, therapeutic amounts of Luvox were discovered in his blood stream.

Dylan Klebold's autopsy report found no traces of drugs.

Was Eric's medication one further element in the Columbine tragedy? Or was it an underlining psychiatric condition that the drugs were supposed to treat?

One thing was certain, when Eric's father heard of the shooting; he immediately thought it could be his son.

Wayne Eric's call to police:

Police: _Jefferson County, 911?_

Wayne Harris: _I'm Wayne Eric. Uh, my son is Eric Harris. And I'm afraid he might be involved in the shooting at Columbine High School_.

Police: _Involved, how?_

Wayne Harris: _Uh, he's a member of what they call the "Trenchcoat Mafia"._

Police: Okay. _Have you spoken with your son today, Mr. Harris?_

Wayne Harris: _No, I haven't._

In the three years before Columbine, there had been ten incidents of American teenagers carrying out gun attacks on their school. In none of these did more than five people die. But Eric and Dylan had set out to kill hundreds. Every aspect of their lives has been examined in the search for a single cause that explained how they could carry out a massacre with such premeditation and cold ruthlessness.

But perhaps the answer is that there is no single cause. That Eric and Dylan were created by a kind of perfect storm of circumstances that gave them the means and the opportunity to carry out an outrageous act of teenage terrorism. And this was compounded by omissions and oversights by police, parents, doctors and the school.

The Perfect Storm Theory for no one stopping them works exclusively. There were a million times someone could've stepped in. There were hundreds and hundreds of times the police legally could've stopped them. Could've searched them, could've talked to the parents. There were times their parents could've stepped in and said "Hey, I'm searching your room. Oh, look! 99 pipe bombs! Jeez! Something's wrong with you." There were a million times it could've been stopped.

Eric turned and went through a door that led to the stair case. Dylan stopped at the door and looked cautiously to his left for a moment and then followed Eric upstairs.

As midday approached, Eric and Dylan made their final journey back towards the library. They walked down the hall silently.

A six man police SWAT team was about to enter the school, but from an entrance at the far end of the building. The police would sweep through the school room by room and would reach the library last of all, almost three and a half hours later.

Since Columbine, the local police have reviewed their tactics and what they call 'imminent threats'. Officers responding to shooting incidents are now trained to intervene early.

LIBRARY

12:02:13

Eric and Dylan arrived back at the library door. The terrible sites of dead were shrouded in thick smoke. They stood in the dark library, covered in thick smoke. Helicopter lights flashed on their faces.

They noticed law enforcement and rescue workers who were evacuating the injured outside in the parking lot. They sat down behind the windows and loaded their weapons.

They would make one last near-suicidal gesture before ending their lives just a few meters from many of their victims.

They looked at each other.

Dylan rose, followed by Eric.

Eric fired three shots and Dylan shot a burst of TEC fire.

Gardner took cover and fired three shots at the gunmen. Denver police officers provided suppressing fire to the library windows, allowing the paramedics to retrieve the three wounded teens. The paramedics rushed the living to medical attention.

The gunmen ducked. Eric raised his Carbine rifle above his head again and took a shot, going back down again. Dylan rose and shot another burst of TEC-9 fire. Eric rose and fired again before the two boys took cover behind the wall.

They sat there for a few minutes, thinking about what they had done. Bullets and glass flew everywhere, yet the killers did not move.

In hind sight, Eric and Dylan's own home recorded video tapes carry a fearful warning. Few could've imagined that they would turn fantasy into tragedy.

VIDEO TAPE

HITMEN FOR HIRE

SCHOOL PROJECT

DYLAN: No, you *** damn piece of punk-ass-shit! DO NOT mess with that freakin' kid! If you do, I will rip off your *** damn head, and shove it so far up your freakin' ass, you'll be coughing up dandruff for FOUR FREAKING MONTHS!

ERIC: Look, I don't care what you say. If you ever touch him again, I will freakin' KILL YOU! I'm gonna pull a *** damn shotgun and blow your damn head off. Do you understand, you little worthless piece of CRAP!

MONTHS AGO

RAMPART RANGE

Eric, Dylan and three of their friends, Mark Manes, Mark's girlfriend, Jessica and Phil Duran, were firing the guns the two boys would use in the massacre, and other guns they would not use. They packed bowling pins stolen from Belleview Lanes to use as targets. And they took a camcorder.

It was cold up there, still plenty of snow on the ground. They dressed sensibly, in layers. Eric and Dylan started with their trench coats on, but worked up a sweat and took them off. They had ear protection and eye gear that they sometimes wore.

They shot a bowling pin full of lead, and then Eric had another idea. He aimed his shotgun at an imposing pine five feet away. He missed. And it hurt. The gun had a vicious recoil, which his arm had to absorb. Every inch you cut a shotgun's barrel back magnifies the kick. Eric and Dylan had cut theirs back ridiculously short, almost to the chamber, and now they would suffer the consequences.

He directed Dylan to follow.

"Try to hit a tree," he said. "I want to see what a slug does to the tree."

Holding his TEC-9 sideways with his left hand, Dylan punched a two-inch-wide hole in the trunk. They all rushed forward to inspect the damage. Eric dug his finger around and produced a pellet.

They went to investigate a tree.

"That's a fucking slug!" Dyaln jeered.

"Imagine that in someone's fucking brain," Eric suggested.

"Yeah, it hurt my wrist like a son of a bitch," Dylan complained.

"I bet so," Eric agreed, getting some more laughs.

"Look at that!" Dylan laughed, looking at his hand. "I've got blood now!"

They shot more guns and laughed some more.

Each shot via shotgun was punishing. The blast would tear the barrel out of Eric's left hand and whip his gun arm back like a rubber band.

Eric, Dylan and their friends approached the camera to show off their war wounds: large patches of skin scraped off between the thumb and forefinger, where they need to work on tightening their grip.

"When high school kids use guns," someone said. Everybody laughed.

"Guns are bad when you saw them off and make them illegal. Bad things will happen to you," Manes said, getting some laughs. "Say no to the sawed offs."

"Bad!" Eric giggled, pretending to spank Dylan a single barreled shotgun.

"No! No! No! No!" Dylan played along, wagging his finger at the shotgun.

Eric picked up a bowling pin with a small hole drilled through the front and a crater out the back. He showed off each side to the camera.

"Entry, exit," Eric said, getting some laughs.

LIBRARY

12:08:13

Eric and Dylan got up and moved to a book shelf and sat on the floor. Before they sat down, Eric lit a Molotov cocktail on top of a desk.

"This is it, bro," Dylan said.

Eric nodded slightly. "Roll credits, dog."

The boys shook hands. They had lived together. And they would die together.

"The End," Dylan said. "Heh heh."

They cocked their guns.

"So how are we gonna do it?" Dylan asked.

"Like how?" Eric replied.

"Like, one, two, three, shoot or one, two, shoot on three?"

"Uh...the first one," Eric replied.

"One...two...three!" they both yelled.

Eric shot himself in the mouth with his shotgun, literally blowing his brains out. Blood spattered the books behind him. He fell on his side, his hands surrounding his head as if hugging an invisible pillow.

Dylan shot himself in the left temple with his TEC-DC9. His hat blew into pieces and he landed on his back, his blood covering Eric's pants. He survived long enough to aspirate blood into his lungs, and would have been capable of some involuntary movement. He moaned, and died with his mouth open.

LATER...

Patrick Ireland's skull had stopped several buckshot fragments. Other debris lodged in his scalp as well - probably wood splinters torn from the tabletop from a shotgun blast. One pellet got through. It burrowed six inches through spongy brain matter, entering through the scalp just above his hairline on the left, and lodging near the middle rear. Bits of his optical center were missing; most of his language capacity was wiped out. He regained consciousness, but words were hard to form and difficult to interpret as well. Pathways for all sorts of functions had been severed. Perception was impeded, so he couldn't tell when he was speaking gibberish or jumbling incoming sounds. The left brain controls the right side of the body, and the pellet cut through the connection. Patrick was paralyzed (not for the rest of your life paralyzed, just till you get to a hospital paralyzed) on the right side. He had been shot in the right foot; it was broken and bleeding - he didn't even know it. He felt nothing on that side.

Patrick drifted in and out. He tried to get out. Half his body refused. He couldn't stand; he couldn't even crawl right. He reached with his left hand, gripped something, and dragged himself forward. His useless side trailed behind. He made a little progress, and his brain gave out.

He came to repeatedly and began again. He started less than two table lengths from the windows, but he eheaded off in the wrong direction. Then he hit obstacles: bodies, table legs, and chairs. Some he pushed away, others had to be maneuvered around. He almost hurled from the sight of Eric and Dylan's bodies. He kept heading for the light. If he could just make it to the windows maybe someone would see him. If he had to, maybe he would jump. It took three hours to get there. He found an easy chair beside the opening. It was sturdy enough not to trip. He wedged his back against the short wall and worked himself upward, then grabbed hold of the chair for a final push. He propped himself against the girder between two large panes and rested awhile to recover his strength.

Patrick stood on one leg, braced his shoulder against the girder, and picked away the chunks of glass shards with the same hand.

2:30 PM

An officer riding along in a news chopper spotted somebody moving inside the library. He was just inside the blown-out windows, covered in blood and behaving curiously: sagging against the frame, clearing away shards of glass.

The officer radioed a SWAT team. They revved the Loomis armored truck and raced toward the building.

"Hang on, kid!" one of them called. "We're coming to get you!"

Patrick was confused. He heard someone yell, but couldn't see anyone or figure out where the voices were coming from. He felt dizzy. His vision was blurry and one big section was blank. He was unaware that blood was streaming down into his eyes.

Get out! a voice shouted inside his head, Get out!

The armored truck pulled up beneath the window. A squadron of SWAT officers leapt out. Nearby teams provided cover from either side. One group took aim from behind a fire truck; snipers sprawled on rooftops trained their scopes from farther back. If this rescue mission was fired upon, they'd ready.

"Okay, it's safe!" a SWAT man said. "Go ahead and jump. We'll catch you!"

Patrick collapsed forward. The ledge caught him at the waist, and he folded in half, head gangling toward the ground. He wiggled forward, but he couldn't get much traction from the inside, because his feet were already off the floor.

A SWAT officer clambered up the side of the truck and threw his weapon to ground. Another followed close behind him. As the first man hit the truck roof, Patrick kicked his good leg up toward the ceiling, and reached down for the sidewalk with his arms.

The officers lunged toward him and each man caught one of his hands. Patrick kicked again, completely vertical, and his hips pulled away from the frame. The officers clenched and his hands barely moved. The rest of his body spun around like a gymnast gripping the high bar, until he whacked onto the truck roof. The officers got him to safety and a hospital.

Three hours later, police found Eric crumpled, Dylan sprawled leisurely. His legs flopped over to the side, one knee atop the other, ankles crossed. One arm draped across his stomach, underlining the world emblazoned on his black T-shirt. His head lay back, his mouth open, jaw slack. Blood trickled out the corners, towards his ears. He looked serene. The red letters on his cheat screamed WRATH.

CONCLUSION

Violence, in all its forms, is part of the American education curriculum. Kids tease, humiliate, and make fun of one another for trivialities of all kinds, never realizing that there is a world beyond high school - a world full of many, many kinds of people.

In almost incidents of school violence, the perpetrators were said to have been taunted and subjected to varying degrees of cruelty - from racial slurs to beatings - by other students. There is no question that such an environment will exacerbate feelings of inferiority, hopelessness, and anger. Many kids dream of revenge against those made their lives Hell, but few materialize their vengeance.

Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris are not to be commended for what they did, yet disaffected teens have placed them on a pedestal. They have become icons for the degeneration of society, and icons for misfits who see their own fantasies of revenge in the Columbine High School shootings. They have also become the poster boys for evil - two gun-toting, crazed gunmen killing the innocent.

It is indisputable that there was a 'popular' sect of students at Columbine High School. (As there is at every school, to varying degrees) The school's state wrestling champion was allowed to park his $100,000 Hummer in a 15 minute parking space - all day. A football player repeatedly teased a girl about her breasts - in class, in front of a teacher - with no fear of retribution. And just like any school in America, the sports trophies were displayed in the front of the school, the art in a back hallway. The discrimination was even evident in the yearbook - sports pages were in full color, other clubs were in black and white.

The obvious favoritism given to the athletic crowd probably angered many students - including Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris. The only difference is that their anger toward certain groups of students materialized into a hatred for everyone. They didn't target just the jocks or just the black kids. They killed indiscriminately.

No one can argue that the schoolroom injustices suffered by Dylan and Eric excuse what they did. One can argue that the obvious favoritism made Eric and Dylan's feelings of worthlessness and vengeance all the more powerful.

Police interviews and court records indicate that both Eric and Dylan knew that at their school, jocks could be convicted of crimes and face no suspension or expulsion from school or school-related activities. They also witnessed jocks tormenting other students while teachers and administrators turned a blind eye.

The favoritism at Columbine High School may have gone farther than that at any other American high school. Dylan and Eric once watched as the school's state wrestling champ, Rocky Wayne Hoffschneider, shove his girlfriend into a locker. A teacher witnessed the entire incident and did nothing. Hoffschneider and four other star jocks were arrested for ransacking the Denver apartment of a 22-year-old man, according to court records. The arrests made the papers. Within days, the jocks were back at school. Nine months later they pleaded guilty and got probation.

One gnawing question is this: why was Hoffschneider even allowed at a public school? The 215 pound football player and wrestler transferred to Columbine in 1996, after being expelled from a private school for fighting. He brought with him a criminal record - a 1992 arrest for criminal mischief and 1995 arrest relating to a missing person. But since the star jock was a juvenile, his records were sealed.

The summer before Hoffschneider came to Columbine; his girlfriend's parents accused his mother and sister of kicking in their door one morning. The girl's father is quoted as saying the Hoffschneider family was "was abusive and physical towards us."

The situation was so serious, in fact that the girl's parents kept three of their children from attending Columbine when they learned that Hoffschneider had transferred to their children's school.

Eric' friend Brooks Brown also tells of personal torment by jocks. According to Brown, he, Eric, and Dylan were standing outside when a carload of jocks drove by, throwing a glass bottle out of the car, which shattered at their feet. Brown remembers Dylan saying, "Don't worry, man, it happens all the time."

"We all hated it — hated the fact we were outcasts just simply because we weren't in sports," Brown says. "It's insane when you think about it, but it's real."

Columbine school officials have mostly ignored the task force's investigation. Coaches, teachers and principal Frank DeAngelis refused requests for interviews. School spokesman Rick Kaufman said he would answer written questions, but then did not. He also broke an appointment for a scheduled interview. Messages left for coaches, teachers and administrators at home went unanswered.

One of the few who've acknowledged wrong doing at Columbine High is Jefferson County school board member David DiGiacomo, who says, "I do believe that in all of our schools athletes can appear to have a different status. I think it's OK if kids are working hard and they're good role models, but to give them special privileges, I think we have to be careful."

The day of the shooting, parent Stephen Greene called a school hot line about his son. Instead, he was greeted by the hot line's voice mail. His message was, "I knew something like this in this school could happen."

Stephen Greene has had his own run-in with Hoffschneider. The jock had been attending Columbine for less than a month when he and another football player began teasing Greene's son, Jonathan, who is Jewish. During gym class, the two would sing songs about Hitler whenever they made a basket - all in front of the gym teacher (also Hoffschneider's wrestling coach,) who did nothing.

The abuse didn't stop there. Greene says, "They pinned him [Jonathan] on the ground and did 'body twisters.' He got bruises all over his body. Then the threats began — about setting him on fire and burning him."

Greene took the incidents to his son's guidance counselor. "They said, 'This stuff can happen.' They looked at me like I was a problem," he said. Greene called the school board, which notified the police. Court records show that Hoffschneider and the other jock were charged with harassment, kicking and striking, and sentenced to probation.

Hoffschneider was allowed to continue his football and wrestling.

In the meantime, he was building his own little group of cronies. Parent Cecelia Buckner says, "He created a tough little group of guys — probably seven or eight boys that were involved in sports, mostly football, wrestling, who began to take control of the school."

Anthony A. Pyne, a 230-pound football player, was one of Hoffschneider's buddies. After Christmas, Pyne began to tease Aundrea Harwick in English class about her breasts. Harwick went to the teacher, Tom Tonelli, who was also a Columbine football and wrestling coach. His solution? Move to a different seat.

Harwick says that at a Columbine wrestling match at Arvada High School, Pyne announced, "Her breasts are getting bigger." Once again, she told Coach Place. He told her to sit on the other side of the gym.

She then went to a woman at a concession stand, who called the Arvada police. The officer issued Pyne a ticket. Because he was a juvenile, court records are not available, but Harwick said he pleaded guilty and paid a $50 fine.

The next day at school, administrator Rich Long, trying to persuade the girl to drop the charges, told Harwick and her mother that "by her going and getting the police, she's ruining his possibilities of playing on the football team," Elissa Harwick recalled.

Pyne played football anyway. Friends of Eric and Dylan noticed the favorable treatment Hoffschneider received. Their friend Tad Boles recalls "He always got things that we never could get...respect."

At the beginning of Eric and Dylan's junior year, while in line for registration for new classes, football players shoved a 4-foot-9 freshman girl and called her dirty because she dressed like a hippie. On another occasion a boy called "Little Joey Stair," who was friends with Eric and Dylan, looked up in a hallway to see three football players shoving him into a locker, saying, "Fag, what are you looking at?"

In the halls, body slams were an everyday occurrence. The social 'outcasts' - a group including Eric, Dylan, their friends, acquaintances, and others, got pushed around more than most. "A football player reached out and stepped on the cord of one of these girls' Walkmen and it ripped out and fell and broke," Melissa Snow remembered, who graduated in 1998. "She just didn't say anything. For those kinds of kids it's really hard to stand up to a bunch of football players, who are all standing around thinking it's really funny what this guy did to you."

Eric and Dylan seemed to take the taunting to heart. "They just let the jocks get to them," Colby said. "I think they were taunted to their limits."

Some students also seem to understand the factors that drove Eric and Dylan over the edge. In an ABC news interview, Eric Quintana, whose two friends were killed by Eric and Dylan, explains, "With all the animosity between the various social groups at Columbine, something like this was bound to happen."

Student Thad Martin says the jocks teased others for how they dress. "It makes you not want to go to school."

There are cliques at every school, and Columbine was no different. Acceptance and 'fitting in' is a high priority in most teenagers' lives. Columbine senior Alisha Basore described the subcultures at Columbine. "People are so worried about what their hair is going to look like, what they're going to wear, so worried that they look cool. It's a rat race inside the school to see who's going to be more popular. Everybody's thinking: 'Am I going to look cool for the popular kids? Are they going to accept me?'"

Quintana agrees, "The jocks rule the school, and they kind of get a big head and think that they own the world." Dylan Klebold, Eric Harris, and the other outcasts at Columbine High faced verbal abuse daily. Students say that people would cut in front of them in the lunch line, throw garbage at them, made fun of their clothing, and they were roughed around by others. People ask, "killing thirteen people over verbal taunts, cuts in the lunch line, and insults?"

But that's not all they suffered. Jocks had one time threw a cup of fecal matter at them. Another time, Dylan was videotaping Eric Harris and a friend walking through the hallways. Jocks came along and slammed their arms into all three of their faces and nearly knocked the camera out of Dylan's hands. Seniors had also pelted Dylan with ketchup covered tampons in the commons. Daily, bagels, rocks, coke cans and Skittles were thrown at them at lunch. Body slams against the lockers were frequent, too.

Eric Veik, a friend of Eric and Dylan, says the two would often joke about getting revenge, saying, "It's time to get back at the school."

"They were tired of those who were insulting them, harassing them," Veik says. "They weren't going to take this anymore, and they wanted to stop it. Unfortunately, that's what they did."

Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris were probably mentally unstable to begin with - but plenty of kids are teased at school, and do not resort to murder.

But NO child should ever have to face the verbal and physical abuse that was doled out by the handful at Columbine High. Someone had to have noticed - someone did notice, but nothing was done.

The ultimate blame for Columbine lies in the hands of Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold. But as with nearly any crime, there were factors that aggravated their already fragile and emotionally disturbed minds, factors that sent them over the edge. No one listened to the kids at Columbine who told tales of harassment, abuse, beatings, verbal taunting. No one listened to Dylan or Eric. Not their teachers, not their parents, not the police who arrested them for breaking into a car.

The signs that something wicked was to come were everywhere. At first, they may have been subtle, something most adults would dismiss as 'teenage stuff'. However, as time progressed, Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris were practically screaming for help, but nobody heard their screams. If they did, they didn't care enough to do anything about it.

Unfortunately, no one took the time to look and listen.

At least two people thought Dylan had nothing to do with the shooting. His older brother Byron and his mother Susan were worried that Dylan was trapped in the school.

_Maybe no one knew where Dylan was because he'd been shot himself. Maybe he was lying in the school somewhere injured or dead. Maybe he was being held hostage. Maybe he was trapped and couldn't get word to us_.—Susan Klebold.

The boys knew that no one would listen, and they reacted the only way they knew how—through violence. Death was not real to them. Did they want people to die? Yes, but one can argue that in their stunted emotional states, they never grasped the finality of shooting other students. They wanted revenge. They wanted the people who had caused them pain to feel their pain, a thousand fold. They wanted recognition, in any shape or form. They wanted someone to listen.

The shooting at Columbine High School was one last, fatal cry for help from two boys who were obviously suffering and in agony. It is very sad, for lack of a better word, that no one listened to them, no one tried to help. Even if they did hear their screams, they did nothing to soothe their pain. It is cause for even deeper sorrow that they cried out in the way that they did.

It is neither violent video games nor movies that made Eric and Dylan kill. It was not the music they listened to, the clothes they wore. The seeds of violence had been planted early on in the two boys, and spurted out on April 20, 1999. Eric and Dylan had a cause to support - exact revenge on all those who had wronged them, either real or perceived. Coupled with an already unstable mind, the taunting they were subjected to caused something to snap within them. They retaliated in death. In their twisted psyche, murder was the only solution. They would go from nobodies to infamous criminals, and everyone would finally know their names.

Eric Harris killed out of anger and assumptive superiority. He killed in judgment. He killed because of his self-perceived uniqueness and his wish to exist alone, without the burden of inferiors.

Dylan Klebold killed out of depression, pain and misdirected anguish at not being accepted. He killed because he wanted to be loved. He killed because he felt ostracized and suicidal. He killed because he perceived that no one understood that he didn't want to be alone.

No one heard Eric and Dylan's screams…until it was far too late.

**I know what it's like to be bullied and treated like shit. I hope things like Columbine, Red Lake, Virginia Tech, and Sandy Hook never happens again. You can be a Hero by making a difference. Stand up for yourself and others. Don't just sit back just to fit in. Do what's right.**


	5. The End

Rest in Peace:

Rachel Scott, Daniel Rohrbough, Dave Sanders, Kyle Velasquez, Steven Curnow, Cassie Bernall, Isaiah Shoels, Matthew Kechter, Lauren Townsend, John Tomlin, Kelly Flemming, Daniel Mauser and Corey DePooter.

Also Rest in Peace:

Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris.

You were victims, too.


End file.
